BBc "Micro Bit"

[zapta]

...

That video is people going out of there way to make a scene. All you have to do is ring them, fill in an form, or let them know online you don't watch broadcast TV, or live streaming of broadcast television. Then they leave you alone unless they have a reason to suspect you're lying.

Also not all of the license fee goes to the BBC, some of it also gets split between all the other terrestrial broadcasters.

And TBH it's more like a toll than a tax.

"Income from the licence is primarily used to fund the television, radio and online services of the BBC"  Wikipedia.

Toll for what? Watching the competition? 

Its' anachronistic and corrupt.

[rolycat]

...

That video is people going out of there way to make a scene. All you have to do is ring them, fill in an form, or let them know online you don't watch broadcast TV, or live streaming of broadcast television. Then they leave you alone unless they have a reason to suspect you're lying.

YouTube is a fruitful source of confirmation bias for conspiracy theorists

Also not all of the license fee goes to the BBC, some of it also gets split between all the other terrestrial broadcasters.

Do you have any evidence of this? Channel 4 receives funding from the government, but it is not sourced from the licence fee.

And TBH it's more like a toll than a tax.

In January 2006 the BBC license fee was reclassified from being a service charge to a tax.

One consequence of this was that the BBC itself was moved from being a public non-financial corporation to a central government body.

[Mechanical Menace]

"Income from the licence is primarily used to fund the television, radio and online services of the BBC"  Wikipedia.

PRIMARILY. ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5 also get their cut. It's also what funds the transmitters. ITV for example pays nothing towards it's digital transmissions (the only ones operating any more) and hasn't since 1998.

Toll for what? Watching the competition?

Competition that also receives some of that license income.

Its' anachronistic and corrupt.

Anachronistic yes, corrupt no. That accusation is often made but never substantiated beyond "TV stars get paid more than I do!!!"

[rolycat]

Its' anachronistic and corrupt.

Anachronistic yes, corrupt no. That accusation is often made but never substantiated beyond "TV stars get paid more than I do!!!"

It's not particularly anachronistic - half of the countries in Asia and Africa, and two-thirds of the countries in Europe use television licences to fund public television.

There may well be corruption on the part of some individuals in the organisation, but that is true of most large organisations, public or private.

[FreddyVictor]

looks like the final version has arrived: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-33409311
https://www.techwillsaveus.com/microbit/

apparantly uses an ARM processor, but as with the previous version, little or no hard info yet (that I could find) !

[rolycat]

There is some more detail about the hardware here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/mediapacks/microbit/specs

Processor is an ARM Cortex M0, runtime includes:

• A simple, unified OO model for the device
• A lightweight, non-pre-emptive fibre scheduler
• Managed types for immutable strings and bitmapped images
• A message bus for shipping software and hardware events

...as well as drivers for the LED matrix, bluetooth, accelerometer, compass etc.

The thin contacts between the five larger connections at the bottom edge are also functional, making a 20-pin edge connector.

And it will be on sale to the general public.